Remember Me
by Nighthorror
Summary: Harry has disappered. Hermione is annoyed. What is going on in the world?


AN: I don't really know _why _I wrote this one, but it felt right at the time.

Disclaimer: Still don't own Harry Potter. Never has, never will.

**Remember Me**

Hermione brushed her frizzy hair from her eyes and continued the search for Harry. Not many knew that "the Boy Who Lived" had taken off, right before some magical explosion that left magic all over the world in shambles.

Those that now were brave, or foolish enough to use the shredded magic suffered from severe backlashes. Many had gone insane from too heavily use of magic and the Ministry of Magic was forced to outlaw any kind of magical activity, at least until the Power was restored.

Hermione felt at ease with that law, mostly because she was Muggleborn and didn't rely so much on magic itself to feel compelled to use it, but she heard that the Purebloods were going crazy depressingly often.

She sighed wearily. The world had gone straight to Hell when the Power blast had gone of. Harry must have done something very out of balance with Earth's natural magic field. Or, maybe Voldemort had had something to do with it...

She returned to the matter at hand; finding Harry and take him back. When the Order of the Phoenix found out Harry Potter was missing in action, they sent out requests for information on the man's whereabouts. Anything were considered important; minor magic distractions, wildlife habits and freak accidents sent the members all over the world to check them up. Unfortunately, almost everything had been a false alarm.

Now, Hermione was following one of the last leads, taking her through the backalleys of Los Angeles, where it had been a quite large magical disruption.

She was almost upon the center of the disturbance, when she heard a low cough to the right. Curious, she stopped and tried to see who was coughing. To her annoyance, there was no-one in sight.

She turned to keep on moving down the street, when she remembered that Harry's Invisibility Cloak also where missing. She turned back to where she had looked. It seemed to be a blue container filled with garbage. She stared at it suspiciously, then pulled out her wand. She softly said a Disillusion spell, then put it away.

"There you are," Hermione smiled.

"Yes. Here I am," the green-eyed man replied.

"How are you?"

"Quite good, considering the present circumstances. How's Ron doing?"

"He miss you, Harry," Hermione said. She moved in as if to give Harry a hug, but he moved out of her range.

"No touching," he warned her. "You may risk your life, trying to Apparate me back to home."

She withdrew her arms guiltily. How had he known she would try to do exactly that?

"What happened, Harry?" Hermione asked. "Suddenly, you were gone, and then we feel the most powerful magical blast ever. What happened?"

"That's a long story," Harry smiled sadly, while gesturing to her to sit down. "It may take some time to tell it."

"I have time." She sat down on a broken table. He smiled wider and sat down beside her.

"You know how Minerva wondered how I knew certain information?" he said. She nodded.

"Well, I had, and still have I might add, a huge network of spies, with orders to watch all suspicious activity and give me the information. That is how I knew Voldemort had vainly tried to establish contact with a Dark Necromancer."

Hermione gasped. The Necromancers were unnerving, whether they were Light or Dark. They harnessed the power of death to do their bidding, animating corpses, draining the lifeforce out of their enemies or put an errant spirit to rest. There were few Dark Necromancers and fewer of the Light.

The problem with that kind of energy was that it easily corrupted the one that wielded it. That's why only a few Light Necromancers could stay on the side of the Light. The rest either got killed by a summoning gone awry or went Dark, not able to resist the power of the dark side. One thing was sure, they were seen as a danger to to their community and often resided well out of reach from rest of the world.

"He didn't find one, though, so he tried to dabble in the art by himself. Usually, it ended with loss of energy and a lot of corpses. But sometimes, he got one spell to work properly and he rejoiced." Harry grimaced at the memory. He could still remember the pain in his scar.

"That's where I got troubled. Though he failed more often than not, his succes rates started to go slowly, but steadily up." Hermione grew cold at the thought. The most powerful man alive, able to wield one of the most destructive energies there was. The Muggles wouldn't stand a chance if that was the case. She made a mental note to tell the Order about it later.

"I knew he would be succesful with one of the larger summonings, sooner or later. I put some of my agents in the libraries around the world to give me some advantage over the old snake. Then they found it. An half-dead agent gave me a small box, seemingly made of green glass or crystal and apparently made to capture a soul."

"A Soul Trap!" Hermione exclaimed, horrified.

"You know what it is then, " he said matter-of-factly.

"They are extremly unreliable," she said shakily. "Your own soul can get trapped instead of the intended target's soul."

"You have to get very close, say the right incantation and have an extremly well-made shield on you to get out alive, yes."

He wrapped his arms around his knees and went silent for a while. Hermione started thinking about calling for reinforcements, but decided against it, as Harry surely would know what she was doing and get away without giving an answer to the current situation in the world.

"You were mentioning a Soul Trap," she said carefully after some minutes. He looked up, seemingly a bit disoriented, then sighed and moved into a more comfortable position.

"Yes. The plan was simple. Get close to Voldemort and capture his soul, what's left of it. I started to destroy the Horcruxes he made. They weren't so hard to find, really. Soon, he only had one left: the one inside Nagini, his pet snake, which I killed without so much trouble. The problem now was to find Voldemort."

Hermione listened enchanted to Harry's story. That he had known, all the time and gone after Voldemort all by himself! She wanted to hit him and take him home, but she also wanted to hear the end of the story. She didn't see the small rueful smile on his lips.

"I went around the world, several times, to get the location where he was. Unfortunatly, this place also positivly crawled with Deatheaters. They didn't last long, though, and I stood eye to eye with my long-time enemy. I spitted out the incantation, threw up my strongest shield and waited." Hermione waited impatiently on the continuation of what sounded like the end of the Darkest wizard of the Ages.

"I realized that nothing had happened. I took a quick look around, then discovered that I hadn't opened the Trap." Hermione snorted with laughter. Harry looked faintly embarrased and returned to his story. "I pried it open, panic-striken, said the words once more, almost failed to put my shield up again and dived for cover. I saw how he tried to call upon something really big from some other dimension, but I think it failed. Either way, he called upon very great powers, but when he didn't put it to use fast enough, it consumed him."

Hermione sat very still. At last, she said: "So he's gone now? I mean, really gone?"

"I guess so," he simply said. They were quiet for a long time. Then he made a move as if to stand up.

"What do you think will happen to the magic now?" Hermione asked worriedly. "I mean, when the smallest spell make you want to throw up, being a witch isn't fun."

"I think it will go back with time," Harry said. "The world just got to much magic and try to rebalance it. Sooner or later, it will get back to normal."

He stood up and turned his back on Hermione. Then he turned back and faced her again.

"Thank you and goodbye," he simply said, then started walking away. Hermione scrambled back on her feet.

"Wait!" He stopped.

"Where are you going now?"

"Away. Lie low, get a new life," he said sadly.

"Will we ever see you again?"

He hesitated. Hermione felt his determination waver, then it was back.

"Maybe. I'll keep an eye on you. Say goodbye ti Ginny for me," he said, then kept walking. Hermione stared long after him, then reached for one of her Port Keys. She wondered what she would say to Ron, but it would surely work itself out on the way back. She activated it and went home.

**The End **

AN: Feel free to offer advice on this story or my other stories.


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